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Trying to figure out who #JoshDuggar is? As a scholar of religion in America and someone who has followed the Duggar extended universe since the mid-2000s, allow me to sketch a brief timeline for you. Josh is the eldest son of Arkansas couple Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar. 1/
After Josh’s birth, Michelle and Jim Bob experienced a miscarriage that spurred them to forego birth control & leave the # of children they had “up to God.” Soon, they had 5 kids living in the back of a small home on a used car lot, the front of which served as Jim Bob’s office.
As the younger kids neared schooling age, the Duggars decided to homeschool, a decision influenced by Jim Bob’s discovery of the Institute of Basic Life Principles, a ministry that creates homeschooling materials and conferences, run by the now-infamous Bill Gothard. 3/
Gothard was edged out of IBLP in 2014 after facing allegations of sexual misconduct from over 30 women. Many of the Duggar children attended gender-specific IBLP camps over the years, and the Duggars continue to attend the IBLP annual conferences. 4/
The Duggars rose to national prominence after Jim Bob’s failed run for Senate in 2002. An Associated Press photo of Jim Bob, Michelle, and their then 13 children on their way to vote in the Arkansas primaries led to national news coverage and ultimately... 5/
...a profile in Parents magazine that led to their being noticed by executives at Discovery. Their first TV special, 14 Children and Pregnant Again, aired in 2004, depicting how the family of 16 made life work in a small, 1-bathroom home. https://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/style/raising-14-kids/ 6/
The success of the first Discovery Health documentary led to several more TV specials, including one that followed the building of their current 7,000sq ft home. Later it would come out that it was right before the filming of these specials that Josh molested 4 of his sisters. 7/
TLC built off the success of the specials with a TV series, successively called 17, 18, and 19 Kids and Counting. As Josh neared adulthood, the show heavily featured his courtship, marriage, and the birth of his first few children. Josh parlayed his fame into a job with... 8/
...the Family Research Council, a SPLC-designated hate group and the former policy arm of Focus on the Family. The Council primarily lobbies for pro-life and anti-same sex marriage and anti-trans causes. Michelle got in on the action too, recording a robocall in 2014... 9/
...that warned Fayetteville families that trans bathroom bills would allow “males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls.” Her son, of course, had skirted conviction. 10/
While there had been rumblings for years about Josh’s teenage misconduct, the scandal exploded when InTouch released a FOIA-obtained, redacted police report that seemed to include interviews with multiple Duggar girls, including a 5yo, attesting that Josh had molested them 11/
Josh quickly released a vague apology for “wrongdoing,” he resigned from his FRC position, and TLC pulled the 19 Kids and Counting Show. In their first TV appearance following the news, the Duggars sat for interviews with Megyn Kelly. https://variety.com/2015/tv/columns/duggars-megyn-kelly-josh-duggar-molestation-19-kids-1201512012/ 12/
*CONTENT WARNING* Jim Bob and Michelle defended their inaction after Josh’s molestations, with Jim Bob saying, “He said...he had gone in and just basically touched them over their clothes while they were sleeping; they didn’t even know he had done it” 13/
In a you-can’t-make-this-up turn of events, the police officer Jim Bob eventually took teen Josh to for a “very stern talk” after the molestations pleaded guilty to 8 counts of possession of child pornography just a few years later in 2007. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-hutchens-child-porn-josh-duggar_n_7454428 14/
The Duggar family quietly moved on after the initial hubbub from the scandal. TLC started a new Duggar TV show, Counting On, intended to focus on the older Duggar girls and their new marriages and families. But slowly, Jim Bob, Michelle, & Josh’s wife Anna were featured again 15/
This despite the fact that the Duggar parents were never pushed to account for their failure to respond meaningfully to their son’s indiscretions, who until his arrest yesterday was living with his wife and 6 children in a warehouse on the same plot as the Duggar compound. 16/
Yesterday’s arrest was, in some ways, a long time coming. Homeland Security agents raided Josh’s workplace (a used car lot) in 2019 and have presumably been building this case for a while. Today, he pleaded not guilty to charges of “receiving and possessing child pornography” 17/
. @Garrett_Photo broke the news. Josh faces up to 20 years in federal prison. Josh’s wife Anna announced last Friday that she is pregnant with their 7th child, a girl. Judge declared that, if granted bond, Duggar must live “in a home without minors.” 18/18 https://twitter.com/garrett_photo/status/1388169802607431684
There’s a lot more to say about this trend among conservative white evangelical men, but I’m taking a break. Follow @AntheaButler and @kkdumez for what I imagine will be extremely 
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